As Ben Sasse repeats his history, the University and State of Florida pay (him).

Clip from 2017 interview with Bill Kristol featuring additional context.

Sasse has a history of shady dealings with consulting firms—including his own.

On the curriculum vitae Sasse submitted to UF, he lists a firm, “Platte Strategy Consulting”, under the “Work Experience” section, where he worked over two separate periods totaling 11 years.

Currently, a Google search for the firm returns one result—a location on MapQuest to a townhouse in Alexandria, VA that Sasse owned from 2004-2015. A business registration records search with the Secretary of State or equivalent agency in each state and Washington, D.C. returns no results. A LexisNexis business database search reveals the firm, while active, had or has one employee—Ben Sasse.

Midland Lutheran College’s nonprofit tax forms from 2009-2010 lists Platte Strategy Consulting as the second-highest paid independent contractor that year, receiving $422,500 for “consulting.” The company address listed is an apartment in a luxury high-rise in Austin, TX that Sasse rented while an assistant professor with UT Austin.

Midland named Sasse president-elect in mid-November of 2009, with a scheduled start date of April 2010 and the expectation that in the interim he would conduct a thorough review of the college and formalize a strategic plan.

During this period, as “incoming president” Sasse exercised executive authority—initiating sizeable budget cuts, terminating staff, overseeing the launch of a million-dollar donor-funded health sciences initiative, and overhauling the college’s transfer process—while categorized on Midland’s taxes as an unpaid “Officer” working full 40-hour weeks according to Midland’s taxes.

In the same documents, Midland affirms it was not party to any business transaction with any current or former officer; and had not turned over management to an external consultant.

Sasse behaved as chief executive of the college while compensated as an external consultant; neither Midland nor Sasse disclosed the conflict of interest. For nearly 5 months, Ben Sasse served as president of a college of which he was not an employee.

There are words for this kind of behavior. Like…

The $422,500 Midland paid to Sasse’s ghost firm during this period is 250% of Sasse’s salary during his first year acting as president of Midland as an employee.

Practice makes profit.

In the mid- and late-90s and early 2000s, Sasse embedded himself in similar academic/religious-affiliated non-profit organizations in Southern California—including Westminster Seminary, where, while paid through Platte Strategy Consulting, he assumed for 18 months the role of interim president with full authority over budget and personnel, following the sudden death of the seminary’s development director of 17 years; and, while paid as an external consultant, acting in the role of “Executive Director”, initiating then orchestrating an ongoing merger between the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and Christians United for Reformation during their dual budget crises.

Research from this story led to coverage by Inside Higher Ed. Click on the image to read the article.

The “Runaround.”

Throughout 2013 and 2014, in addition to campaigning across Nebraska’s 93 counties in an RV, while paid $300,000 as “president” on “operational leave” from Midland, Sasse snuck in work trips to New York, Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, New Mexico, and Alabama, performing 29 paid speaking engagements and earning between $10,000 and $15,000 per keynote.

Traveling for business or pleasure?

While Sasse asserted publicly that he would remain “politically celibate” during his tenure at UF, shortly after his start date with the school Worldwide Speakers Group (WWSG) issued a press release promoting Sasse as an exclusive featured speaker, available to perform stock speeches on, among other topics, geopolitics, warfare, and U.S. foreign policy regarding China.

Sasse’s profile on the booking agent’s website notes that the former President of the University of Florida “travels from Nebraska”—a detail which remained unchanged throughout his UF presidency.

Celebrity Talent International lists fees to book Sasse for speaking events at between $40,000 and $75,000.

Dodge County, NE property records show Sasse owns a four-bed, four-bath brick mansion in Nebraska, at the address provided on his UF work agreement, in addition to a lake house.

Per Sasse's UF work agreement, Sasse is required to live in the Dasburg President’s House on campus. Per the same agreement, he must receive board chair prior approval for any “Outside Activities”, including speaking engagements that are not related to his UF responsibilities.

A public records request for details of Sasse's travel activities, including documents which could serve to confirm that he lives in the Dasburg House; that he received prior Board Chair authorization for any outside activities; dates and locations of any outside activities, any funding support Sasse received from the University for travel accommodations, including flights, hotel stays, expenses, and the amounts Sasse billed for/earned from these outside activities, submitted in mid-October of 2023, went ignored for over a year.

Eventual records received showed unextravagant travel—coach flights, economy car rentals, mid-tier business hotels.

An audit by the Florida Auditor General of Sasse’s travel expenditures released months later showed extravagant travel spending, including chartered private jets.

On Sasse’s behalf or request, UF kept and distributed two conflicting sets of documents recording Sasse’s travel expenses and activities—one showing measured restraint, the other careless excess.

Flight patterns.

Throughout Sasse’s academic, consulting, religious, and political careers, he has persistently maintained long-distance “commutes.”

• While a student at Harvard, Sasse got a job as a flight attendant so he could fly for free whenever he wanted.

• While a student at St. John’s and then Yale, he commuted from Southern California, where he moved around between partial, nebulous roles with academic/church-affiliated non-profit organizations.

• While simultaneously alternating between a professorship at UT Austin and a series of short-term positions in federal government in Washington, D.C., Sasse maintained residences in Austin, TX, Alexandria, VA, and Fremont, NE.

• When teaching at UT Austin, Sasse commuted to campus weekly from Fremont, NE.

• In his first semester as president of Midland Lutheran College, Sasse traveled back and forth to Washington, D.C. to work for a health care consulting firm; he appeared on panels at industry events representing, this company as “senior advisor.”

• In 2013 and 2014, Sasse traveled across Nebraska in an RV, while regularly sneaking off to fly to speaking engagements.

• As a Senator, Sasse was “the only commuting dad” who “traveled back and forth each week from Nebraska to D.C.”

Phantom firm.

A now-deleted profile for Platte Strategy Consulting on Virginia Bids, a database for companies seeking Virginia state contracts, categorized Sasse’s firm as a sole-proprietorship providing consulting services in 11 distinct categories.

According to LexisNexis, Platte Strategy Consulting, established in 1996, remained an active entity through 2018.

A Dunn & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number lookup (matching the company phone number listed in LexisNexis) shows the company as currently active.

Candidates and senators are required to disclose any “outside positions” on their financial disclosure forms. For the length of his time campaigning and while in office, Sasse omits his own company from the outside positions he lists on his Senate financial disclosures. If this was or is to be discovered, Sasse would have been or will be subject to a Senate ethics investigation to determine whether this was a fraudulent action.

Sasse consulted with 4 healthcare technology and telecommunication companies/start-ups, holding the title of “Director” with each and earning an additional $200,000 in 2013. These activities are listed on Sasse’s Senate financial disclosures, with honoraria and consulting fees paid to “self”—not Platte Strategy Consulting.

Sasse resigns. And resigns. And resigns. And resigns.

Not counting the five short-term and transitory positions Sasse held in Washington, D.C. between 2003 and 2009, Sasse has resigned abruptly, mid-contract, from every adult job he’s ever had—to take a position he had been surreptitiously pursuing—same pattern, same steps, same intervals.

I don’t want it, it’s mine.

At UT Austin, Sasse led program leadership on, to believe he would be teaching at least through Spring 2010, which he was contractually obligated to do, knowing that he would be leaving at least four months prior to submitting his letter or resignation in mid-December—so as to prolong receiving his UT Austin paycheck.

Sasse initially stated he did not want the job at Midland. In May of 2014, having launched his Senate campaign in June of the previous year, Midland issued a press release that Sasse would be taking “operational leave” through the remainder of his Senate campaign, and that his contract would terminate effective December 31, 2014.

Senate financial disclosures reveal Sasse had revised his contract with Midland to reflect his having taken "operational leave" seven months prior, in October, the month he formally commenced his Senate campaign. Sasse claims to have taken a pay cut to reflect his reduced role. He made $20,000 more this year than his previous highest paid salary year, jumping from $280,000 in 2013 to $300,000 in 2014.

Sasse stated that he intended to give some of the money back. Rather, while Sasse’s contract with Midland ended in December of 2014, Midland's 2015-2016 tax forms show Sasse, while a sitting Senator, with his Midland contract having expired in December of 2014, received $80,000 in additional compensation from the school, with the school reporting that he was working 40 hours weekly for the school while a Senator and traveling back and forth from Nebraska to D.C.

Sasse initially stated he did not want the job as Senator. He did not speak for his first year in office. He advocated for the removal of cameras from the Senate. He published two books during this time, “Them,” about loneliness, which was co-authored with a ghostwriter, and “The Vanishing American Adult.”

Sasse, who announced his campaign for Senate from his elementary school alma mater, having expressed strident disdain for the literal Peter Pan, and wrote the book as advice on “how to turn millennials into adults.”

He resigned abruptly two years into his six-year term, to take a job he had pursued in secrecy, while a United States Senator, for an unknown period of time.

Sasse initially stated he did not want the job at UF. He scarcely spoke during his first year in office. He avoided interviews, kept away from campus and the community, shrouded his comings and goings, spent taxpayer money as a spree, and resigned abruptly.

Sasse is nothing if not consistent. Had the UF community had adequate opportunity to vet him as a candidate, he would never have been considered, much less chosen, university president.

Arrival/departure: where does Sasse land?

In Sasse's resignation message, posted to twitter, Sasse says he will be “on operational leave”, language he recycles from his departure from Midland to campaign for Senator, while continuing to collect his presidential paycheck.

Sections of Sasse’s UF resignation tweet read like Sasse’s resignation from UT Austin—expressing his love for the campus and community where he scarcely touched down, and his intention to remain active with the school in some capacity.

Sasse was initially recruited to run for Senate by former chair of the Nebraska Republican Party Mark Fahleson. The two had met during former Nebraska Congressman Jeff Fortenberry's* 2005 inauguration. In 2013, Fahleson joined the Midland board, regularly meeting with Sasse in a “secret location” to discuss his candidacy, before Fahleson alley-ooped Sasse’s campaign by initiating a Facebook campaign to goad him into entering the race.

The post-presidency language in Sasse's contract is highly unusual, guaranteeing him a tenure position with otherwise open-ended terms, including potentially continuing to receive is presidential salary. Mark Fahleson, Sasse’s legal counsel, negotiated and endorsed Sasse’s work agreement with UF.

As past behaviors at the outset of Sasse's tenure at UF parallel his actions in previous positions, it can be reasonably expected that he will repeat certain persistent behaviors—and may be currently, surreptitiously searching for another high-paid, high-profile position while staying away from campus, stalling in performing all but the minimum job duties at UF while collecting his exorbitant, unearned salary.

His contract with UF, scripted by his buddy, is tailored to his proclivities and reflects forecasting to control for a series of predictable or planned events.

The vanishing university president.

At ten years old, Ben Sasse lied about being twelve to get a job as a Hawker vending at University of Nebraska football games—so he could get paid to watch games for free. At 37, with no formal administrative experience or training, having taught six-and-one-third classes between 2004 and 2009 as an assistant professor, Sasse became a college president. He boasts of having run for Senator with no experience, and famously worked as a vendor selling Runzas at Nebraska football games while in office; selected to the UF presidency without meaningful experience, relevant qualifications, or current academic record, one of his earliest appearances on campus was serving as a vendor at Gator football games.

With Sasse resigned as president and considering new opportunities on campus, the Gators home opener is in a week.



Concessions is hiring. For once, he’s got the experience.

*Fortbenberry was indicted on three felony campaign finance violation charges in March of 2022, around the time UF commenced its presidential search. Sasse lists “Chief-of-Staff to Nebraska Congressman” as an entry on his CV. He avoids naming Fortenberry.